During a recent edition of “Busted Open Radio”, AEW President Tony Khan commented on AEW All Out being the most-watched non-WWE pay-per-view event since the 1990s, Kenny Omega ranking number one on the PWI 500, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Kenny Omega ranking No. 1 in the PWI 500: “No surprise, no surprise. I think it’s very well deserved. It’s a great honor for Kenny. Last year, Jon Moxley was a great number one representative for AEW, and I think it’s awesome for Kenny Omega to be No. 1 in the PWI. I think it’s a lot of milestones for AEW this week and a lot of firsts. It’s definitely the best PPV card I’ve ever been associated with, and I’m just so proud of all our team. To be able to come to TV and say ‘this is our crew’ and to be able to look around our locker room and have CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Ruby Soho, and all these great new faces in AEW, it’s pretty special. Things have changed a lot in AEW, and I really believe we have the best roster in all of wrestling right now. So it’s very fitting that our world champion, Kenny Omega, is the number one ranked wrestler in the world.”
On the success of AEW All Out and how it changed the landscape of pro wrestling: “I had the highest of expectations. On paper it felt like it was going to be the best show we’d ever done. And I told everyone that backstage. ‘I really think this is going to be the best thing we’ve ever done, we just have to deliver.’ It involved execution and everybody working hard and staying on task as a team, and it happened. Everybody hit their times and it was one of the best bell to bell shows I can ever remember. And in terms of the moments and the surprises, when you add up everything that happened on the show and how it changed the landscape of pro wrestling today, I do think it’s going to be a show people remember for a very, very long time. That was our goal with the show. So for AEW All Out, I’m glad it’s going to be remembered as a very historic, monumental, newsworthy PPV.
“It’s also the most watched wrestling PPV by any company outside of WWE since the 90’s. 1999 was definitely the last time anybody put numbers like this outside of WWE. And frankly, when the PPV universe was basically WWE’s game still before they had gone to a Network subscription model when they were offering linear PPV, this would’ve been a good number for a WWE PPV too. That’s an apples-to-apples comparison. This is really strong numbers and like I said, it was a one-horse race in PPV for about 20 years. And that entire time, nobody else put up numbers like this. So it’s pretty special and it really signifies that competition is back in the wrestling business. But I think that was pretty obvious with the statements we made on the PPV, the quality of the show, and the free agent acquisitions that we were able to get.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
